
A young boy dies from a stray bullet during a shootout between a cop and mob family member who had previously been supiciously given probabtion, only to break its terms. New York's Deputy Mayor, Kevin Calhoun starts digging for information.... (Full plot summary below)
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A young boy dies from a stray bullet during a shootout between a cop and mob family member who had previously been supiciously given probabtion, only to break its terms. New York's Deputy Mayor, Kevin Calhoun starts digging for information.
Leave your thoughts about City Hall.
| The Associated PressBob ThomasCharismatic performances push this into a higher bracket of political thriller. |
| San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFor most of its 110 minutes, City Hal is a strong, hard-boiled drama that gives an insider's look at the wheelings and dealings in and around the mayor's office. |
| Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovBecker's tight, streamlined direction, along with Nicholas Pileggi's (GoodFellas) excellent script and Cusack's wonderful turn as Calhoun take City Hall far above the standard genre fare. Like real mayoral politics, it's a descent into a snakepit, with no easy answers in sight. |
| Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonIn the course of City Hall, Calhoun doesn’t just get to the bottom of a scandal. He grows up, and watching Cusack enact the transformation, I thought I glimpsed this gifted young actor growing into a star. |
| Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam ArnoldMany of the parts of City Hall are so good that the whole should add up to more, but it doesn't. |
| New York Daily NewsDave KehrBut this knotty investigative thriller has trouble achieving the rock-solid credibility to hold an audience in thrall. |
| Baltimore SunStephen HunterCity Hall has plenty of smarts; it just lacks real wisdom. |
| ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDespite the presence of three top-line actors and a fine supporting cast, City Hall never lives up to its promise. There's too little grit and too much predictability, and even the central character, Calhoun, is never better than half-developed. Director Harold Becker (Sea of Love, Malice) keeps City Hall well-paced, so boredom never threatens. Even so, as political thrillers go, this one stands below the likes of even Kevin Costner's No Way Out, and isn't close to the same category as All the President's Men. There's not enough substance or energy here to warrant more than a lukewarm recommendation. |
| VarietyLeonard KladyCity Hall comes awfully close to delivering the goods within a fast-paced thriller framework. At its best, the picture conveys the visceral energy of city politics, in which problem-solving is more common than air. The dilemma for the film is that there are no happy endings, just reelection promises that have as much substance as ether. |
| NewsweekJack KrollFive screenwriters are credited, and the end product, despite moments of individual quality from an able cast, pulls in at least as many different directions. There's some attempt to probe the grindings of the Democrat Party machine; there's also a long hard look at the day-to-day workings of the Probation Office. All of this is moderately absorbing, and somehow, somewhere the movie does care; it's just that the notion of corruption being endemic in the US system ain't hot news. |